Bruins show who’s boss in bounce-back win over Maple Leafs

Article content

When the Bruins are all business, it’s bad news for the Maple Leafs.

Article content

From coach Jim Montgomery’s terse pre-game comments, to Brad Marchand passing on morning media mischief, to two first-period goals and a 4-for-4 penalty kill, Boston looked nothing like the team that collapsed against the Islanders a few nights earlier and had dropped four of its past five in a string of overtime misfortune.

Article content

With the Leafs breathing down their necks in the Atlantic Division, Boston needed this less-than-manic Monday and the 4-1 win to sort itself out and create some separation in the first of two games against Toronto this week.

And the home team?

“We were streaky,” said Morgan Rielly of failing to match the 60 minutes punched in by the B’s. “You take your foot off against a good team, they make you pay.”

Article content

Article content

When the Leafs did excite Scotiabank Arena, Jeremy Swayman rejected the best of their 33 shots, giving up only a third-period goal to John Tavares. NHL top gun Auston Matthews just failed to slide a puck all the way over the goal-line, Tyler Bertuzzi and Max Domi missed a couple of grand chances and Mitch Marner, with the most points (33) of any NHLer versus Boston since 2016, was blanked.

The Bruins have won all three versus the Leafs this season, two in extra time. Rielly took little solace from outshooting Boston on Monday.

“You tell yourself (that’s encouraging), but it’s not really the same when you’re trailing. The other team is playing a different structure up three.”

Article content

Coach Sheldon Keefe said he liked his team’s start — until its first power play went south. The Bruins followed up that momentum with David Pastrnak finding Morgan Geekie alone in front of Joseph Woll. With Jake McCabe off for slashing Marchand, the Leafs lost track of Pavel Zacha in the slot and were down two.

Jake DeBrusk came out of his slump to finish a rush started by Marchand — the latter can usually be counted upon to troll Toronto, but made himself scarce after the morning skate — before Zacha’s second of the night.

“They did a little bit better job around their net than we did around ours,” Tavares noted. “Playing a team like Boston down the stretch, those are big difference makers. Margins are very small, a good reminder for us.”

Article content

Tavares’s goal included Ilya Lyubushkin’s first point since rejoining the Leafs in a trade last week and Rielly’s 459th as a Leaf, passing Tim Horton for third among all franchise defencemen to trail only Borje Salming and Tomas Kaberle.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

Victimized by Boston’s bounce-back was Woll, making his second start since a three-month absence with an ankle injury and looking to build on a 30-save win over Arizona.

There was some intrigue when Ilya Samsonov came off first after the full morning skate, usually a sign of the starting assignment, but Keefe talked up the need to get Woll back in game action after Samsonov played Saturday. Keefe went on to say the calendar is dictating the rotation more than the opponent with four games in six days this week, including a home game against Buffalo before the Leafs head to Beantown on a back to back.

Article content

“They’re a premier team in the league and we were in for a tough night,” Keefe said of Boston. “They don’t many mistakes and you have to earn your opportunities. They played hard and defended their net extremely well.

“When they make good on their chances and we don’t on ours, we tend to overanalyze things and overemphasize the negative. We did a lot of good things today, but against Boston you can’t just do good things, you have to do great things, be ultracompetitive, be great on special teams, a lot of things have to line up.”

After a first-shift blocker save on a breaking Pastrnak, the Leafs didn’t allow another shot for a long stretch, but couldn’t beat Swayman in the meantime.

These teams could be first round playoff opponents again after a five-year hiatus following Boston winning both series in 2018 and 2019. The Bruins have now won 101 regular season games under Montgomery.

Swayman won his 20th game of the season, while Woll was looking for his 10th, which would’ve given Toronto three goalies with double figures (including Martin Jones), an NHL rarity.

[email protected]

X: @sunhornby

Article content